The U.S. accused Russian intelligence operatives of orchestrating a murder-for-hire plot targeting a Kremlin critic believed to be living in Washington, D.C.
In documents unsealed on Tuesday, federal prosecutors claim the conspiracy was part of a broader global network that recruited people to carry out assassinations and terrorist attacks on behalf of Moscow. The five men charged in the incitement allegedly worked for Russia’s intelligence services, and are accused of being paid and attempting to pay others in the U.S. and abroad to surveil and kill Russian dissidents.
Three of the defendants also face conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire charges. All five defendants remain at large, according to the Justice Department.
According to prosecutors, the alleged operation reached the nation’s capital in late August, when suspected Russian intelligence operatives directed a U.S.-based Venezuelan citizen to secretly film two Washington-area locations tied to a Kremlin critic before allegedly offering him $40,000 to carry out the killing. The recruit completed the surveillance but refused to commit the murder himself, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors allege the five defendants were members or associates of a Russian intelligence-directed network that financed terrorism and coordinated violent operations across multiple countries.
The recruiter walked the operative through the surveillance step by step, prosecutors say, and allegedly instructed him to put his phone in airplane mode, begin recording before entering the neighborhood, slow as he passed the target’s home and delete the messages afterward.
The indictment says the conspirators used coded language, referring to the assassination as “construction” and the surveillance as “measuring a plot of land.” When the recruit declined to carry out the murder himself, prosecutors allege the network sought other U.S.-based recruits while noting it also had “people in Mexico” available for the job.
RUSSIA’S SHADOW WAR IS PUTTING EUROPE ON EDGE AS GERMANY CONFRONTS A GROWING THREAT
In addition to the alleged murder plot in Washington, the indictment accuses members of the network of supporting attacks on civilian and military infrastructure in Europe and carrying out surveillance of Russian dissidents abroad.
The case marks one of the most serious publicly alleged Russian intelligence operations targeting an individual inside the U.S. in recent years.
The indictment names five alleged members of what prosecutors call the Russian Intelligence Services Network (RIS). They are Yuri Khrameev, a former Russian intelligence colonel known as “Colonel Yuri”; his son, Kirill Khrameev, an officer in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB); Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, a Cuban national living in Russia whom prosecutors describe as coordinating attacks for the network; Yaidel Delgado Suarez, known as “Viking,” and Angel Eduardo Castro.
Russia has repeatedly been accused by Western governments of targeting political opponents and defectors abroad.
Among the highest-profile cases was the 2018 poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England, with the military-grade nerve agent Novichok. British authorities blamed Russian military intelligence for the attack, an allegation Moscow denied.
U.S. officials have also accused Russia of orchestrating killings of Kremlin critics overseas and conducting covert influence and espionage operations inside the United States, though prosecutors say the alleged Washington murder plot represents a rare instance in which Russian operatives sought to recruit someone on U.S. soil to carry out an assassination.
RUSSIA UNLEASHES NEARLY 600 MISSILES AND DRONES ON KYIV IN DEADLIEST STRIKE SINCE MAY
Prosecutors say the alleged Washington murder plot was part of a much broader Russian intelligence campaign that has operated since at least 2024. According to the indictment, the same network recruited a U.S. citizen in Lithuania to surveil another Kremlin critic before allegedly offering about $25,000 to kill him.
After that recruit refused, prosecutors say the network shifted to soliciting sabotage attacks against infrastructure in countries supporting Ukraine, including alleged plots targeting electrical substations , warehouses and transportation hubs.
The indictment comes as Western governments have warned that Russia has expanded its use of covert operations, sabotage and assassination plots beyond the battlefield since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
U.S. prosecutors allege the network shifted its focus from targeting Russian dissidents and defectors to attacking countries “aligned, or perceived to be aligned, with Ukraine.”
